Resilient, Inclusive, & Sustainable Environments (RISE)
Photo: Conservation International
Environment projects dedicated to addressing gender-based violence
Fostering cross-sector partnership. Pioneering learning.
Gender-based violence (GBV) is pervasive across sectors, affecting more than one in three women worldwide. Deeply interlinked with natural resource access and control, GBV is also exacerbated in the context of environmental degradation and climate change. The Resilient, Inclusive, & Sustainable Environments (RISE) Challenge, funded by USAID, supports organizations to innovatively adapt and implement approaches to address GBV in environmental programming.
Addressing gender-based violence and environment links.
In 2019, based on research findings uncovered during the development of IUCN's research on gender-based violence and environment linkages, USAID’s Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GenDev) designed the RISE Challenge to support the innovative application of promising or proven interventions to address GBV in environmental programming. The RISE Challenge aims to:
• Spur greater awareness of the intersection between environmental degradation and GBV
• Test new environmental programming approaches to prevent and respond to GBV
• Share learning on interventions and policies
• Elevate attention to GBV-environment and attract commitments from other organizations, including implementing partners and donors, for collaboration and co-investment
Building community.
For winners of the RISE challenge, AGENT features their interventions, facilitates access to funding and networking opportunities, and provides technical assistance to support the proposed activity in achieving measurable results and impact.
In natural resources sectors and contexts, preventing and addressing GBV is critical for healthy and sustainable environments as well as for realizing women’s empowerment and gender equality outcomes. The RISE Challenge uniquely identifies and implements interventions to prevent and respond to GBV links in environmental programming and environment-related projects.
The grant-making window for RISE is currently closed. Check back for updates in late 2021 or sign up for our GBV-ENV Bulletin. You can see the previous Request for Applications and supporting documents below.
Building knowledge. Informing action.
Inspired by and grounded in the evidence base built by IUCN under its AGENT partnership with USAID, the RISE Challenge projects are now generating new information and learning that help enrich the knowledge base on GBV-environment linkages. Scroll down for project summaries and stories.
Meet the winners!
Meet the nine winners of USAID’s RISE Challenge. These projects do critical work in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiji, Guatemala, Kenya, Peru, Uganda, and Vietnam. The activities are designed to address GBV in environmental contexts and generate learning and evidence on promising interventions.
Conservation International Foundation
Conservation International Foundation (CI) is partnering with PROMSEX to implement the project in Peru: Alto Mayo Landscape Without Gender Violence. This project seeks to shift harmful gender norms and beliefs about women’s and men’s roles in society, the sanctioning of violence, and community processes for dealing with violence in Peru’s Nuwas Forest by addressing the drivers of GBV.
CI and their partners are providing training to 70 women who manage the Nuwas Forest on their legal rights and sexual violence prevention, and are helping the community to develop informal support systems for GBV survivors. CI engages with men and boys in the community to explore concepts of masculinity and transform attitudes that contribute to GBV. Additionally, they aim to bring government GBV support services closer to the community and build the capacity of staff, partners, and the local indigenous federation to respond appropriately to incidents of GBV.
Project: Alto Mayo Landscape Without Gender Violence
Country: Peru
Period of Performance: January 2021 – January 2022
RISE Competition Round 2: 2020
Utz Che’
Community Forestry Association of Guatemala Utz Che’ (Utz Che’) is partnering with Trees, Water & People to implement the project in Guatemala: Tz’unun: Ending Environmental Violence Against Indigenous Women in Guatemala through Empowerment in Community Forestry, Agroecology, and Collective Healing Spaces.
The project will be implemented with guidance of an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University with expertise in gendered dynamics of resource access and use. This team is addressing GBV in community forestry in southern and eastern Guatemala, where natural resource conflicts are an extension of past and recurring injustices to rural communities, particularly to indigenous women. Utz Che’ and its partners are working with 23 indigenous, multicultural, and campesino communities to empower 400 women through community forestry and agroecology. The partner is also providing collective healing spaces, which are spaces for women to share their experiences with GBV, receive guidance on how to identify specific GBV challenges, and collectively build solutions. This project is supporting women’s associations’ efforts to promote food sovereignty, economic entrepreneurship, and forest protection.
Project: Tz’unun: Ending Environmental Violence Against Indigenous Women in Guatemala through Empowerment in Community Forestry, Agroecology, and Collective Healing Spaces
Country: Guatemala
Period of Performance: January 2021 – June 2022
RISE Competition Round 2: 2020
WildAct-Vietnam
WildAct-Vietnam is partnering with CARE Vietnam and the Vietnam Association of National Parks and Protected Areas to implement the project in Vietnam: Reducing Gender-Based Violence in Vietnamese Conservation.
In the 16th most biodiverse country, issues around gender inequality and harassment impact women’s involvement with conservation initiatives, hindering progress on the vital work being undertaken to protect Vietnam’s fauna and flora. This project seeks to empower local women, leaders, and conservation organizations in Vietnam to address the challenges of gender inequality, harassment, and unsafe working environments that women face in wildlife conservation. WildAct-Vietnam and its partners are establishing workshops and trainings with employees working at all levels within wildlife conservation organizations to discuss their working environment, fieldwork safety, and perceptions of harassment in the workplace. The implementers are convening meetings with managers and other leaders to exchange knowledge and experiences in order to create a safer environment for employees. The consortium is establishing a Vietnamese Women in Conservation Network and create workplace safety materials for women in conservation that both organizations and government agencies can adopt.
Project: Reducing Gender-Based Violence in Vietnamese Conservation
Country: Vietnam
Period of Performance: December 2020 – June 2022
RISE Competition Round 2: 2020
Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association
Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) is partnering with Fauna & Flora International, CARE Kenya, Centre for Rights Education and Awareness, and Taita Taveta Wildlife Conservancies Association to implement the project in Kenya: Advancing Equitable Gender, Social and Power Norms in Community Conservancies.
This project addresses GBV and ensures more equitable access to and control of natural resources in conservancies in Kenya by advancing equitable norms. To facilitate transformation and gender equality, KWCA and its partners adapts elements and tools of CARE International’s Social Analysis and Action model. The consortium provides training and safe spaces for KWCA and selected conservancy staff to identify and challenge harmful gender norms, and to help conservancies promote safe, equitable, and inclusive decision-making. With RISE funding, KWCA is also updating their gender strategy to address GBV and work with member conservancies to develop and roll out a safeguarding policy. Through these activities, this project is increasing consciousness of unequal norms and encourage conservancy staff to adopt and maintain positive changes in gender relations.
Project: Advancing Equitable Gender, Social and Power Norms in Community Conservancies
Country: Kenya
Period of Performance: January 2021 – March 2022
RISE Competition Round 2: 2020
Action to Protect Women and Abandoned Children
Action to Protect Women and Abandoned Children (ASEFA) is partnering with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and two other women-led local organizations to implement the project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Resource-ful Empowerment: Elevating Women’s Voices for Human and Environmental Protection in Congolese Small-Scale Mining.
The project addresses GBV and environmental degradation associated with artisanal mining in the eastern DRC, where one study found that one in seven women were required to trade sex for access to work in mining. Building upon research conducted by HHI in 2016, ASEFA and HHI are training 360 women and men miners through a year-long curriculum on human rights, women’s protection, and measures for reducing the environmental impact of artisanal mining in four project sites within each of the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, and Maniema. Half of the communities are receiving additional training that examines the link between people who work in mining towns and how humans are connected to their environment, with the main goal of improving both environmental and human outcomes. The project aims to develop an evidence-based, scalable, and replicable curriculum to address human rights, GBV, and environmental protection.
Project: Resource-ful Empowerment: Elevating Women’s Voices for Human and Environmental Protection in Congolese Small-Scale Mining
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Period of Performance: February 2020 – December 2021
RISE Competition Round 1: 2019
Alliance for Responsible Mining
The Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) is partnering with MIT D-Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to implement the project in Colombia: Creative Capacity Building to Address Gender-Based Violence in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sector.
The project introduces GBV prevention and response into an existing MIT D-Lab project that aims to increase socio-economic opportunities for women miners while reducing environmental impacts in the Antioquia region of Colombia. In 2018, ARM completed a study in Antioquia that found that gender inequality and GBV are widespread in the mining communities. With RISE funding, the project usees a proven and innovative movement-building approach to address GBV in mining. Through this approach, ARM creates safe spaces for women to share their GBV experiences and receive guidance on how to identify specific GBV challenges to collectively build solutions. The project also guides women on best practices in organizing themselves into associations and how to effectively implement a strategy to address GBV in their communities. This project increases awareness and provides women miners with the skills and space to overcome social and economic GBV.
Project: Creative Capacity Building to Address Gender-Based Violence in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sector
Country: Colombia
Period of Performance: February 2020 – January 2022
RISE Competition Round 1: 2019
Marstel-Day
Marstel-Day and WI-HER, as well as their counterparts, the University of the South Pacific, the Fiji Environmental Law Association, Live & Learn Environmental Education, and Fiji’s REDD+ Programme, are working together to promote gender equity and transformation by tackling resource-based conflict and GBV in Fiji.
With funding from the World Bank, Marstel-Day staff supported the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) program’s readiness efforts and led to the design and implementation of the Feedback, Grievances, and Redress Mechanism (FGRM), a promising framework for resolving resource-based disputes and conflicts that may arise from REDD+ programming. The FGRM facilitates two-way communication between communities and national government agencies or companies to solve issues arising from REDD+ programming through formalized dialogue. With RISE funding, the consortium is using WI-HER’s proven approach to integrate gender (iDARE) to improve the FGRM so that it better addresses gender-based risk and GBV as a result of payment for ecosystem services programming, like REDD+.
Project: Gender Empowerment and Transformation: Tackling Resource-Based Conflict and Gender-Based Violence in Fiji
Country: Fiji
Period of Performance: March 2020 – February 2022
RISE Competition Round 1: 2019
Trocaire
Trócaire is partnering with Land Equity Movement of Uganda (LEMU) and Soroti Catholic Diocese Integrated Development Organization (SOCADIDO) to implement the project in Uganda: Securing Land Rights and Ending Gender Exclusion Project.
In eastern Uganda, approximately 80 percent of women report experiencing physical and psychological violence when claiming their land rights, and only eight percent of men believe it is wrong to commit violence against women. With RISE funding, the partners are integrating SASA!, a proven methodology that addresses power imbalances between men and women to prevent and respond to GBV, while improving land tenure and property rights in Uganda. They are training faith-based leaders and partner staff to promote positive social norms that support women’s rights to access and control land and to live free from GBV. The partners are also helping women better document their land rights by developing and training traditional leaders to use an alternative dispute resolution mechanism that takes into consideration the rights of women.
Project: Securing Land Rights and Ending Gender Exclusion Project
Country: Uganda
Period of Performance: March 2020 – March 2022
RISE Competition Round 1: 2019
Women for Women International
Women for Women International
Women for Women International (WfWI) is partnering with Innovation and Training for Development and Peace (IFDP) to promote women’s rights and improve women’s access to land and GBV referral systems in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
In the DRC, women experience high levels of GBV and low levels of land ownership. For the past fifteen years, WfWI has worked to improve the lives of over 100,000 women in the Congolese province of South Kivu by addressing the drivers of GBV and gender inequality at the community level. With RISE funding, WfWI and IFDP are adapting their promising GBV interventions and applying them to land rights and access, which is an area where women are particularly at risk. This project engages men in shifting social norms, trains change agents to prevent GBV, and expands women’s land rights, thereby boosting their economic security.
Project: Rising Up! Promoting Congolese Women’s Land Access and Preventing GBV in Eastern DRC
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Period of Performance: July 2020 – March 2022
RISE Competition Round 1: 2019
Showcasing the latest RISE stories
A collaborative effort
The challenge draws insights from other development and humanitarian sectors that have proven or promising practices to address GBV. It incentivizes partnerships between environmental organizations, local communities, indigenous peoples organizations, and gender and GBV experts who can help bridge knowledge gaps and work to build an evidence base of effective GBV interventions. Under AGENT, IUCN provides targeted and specific technical support while distilling and sharing experiences from RISE to inform environmental programming.
This challenge supports organizations to innovatively adapt and implement promising or proven practices that have been used to effectively prevent and respond to GBV in other sectors to environmental programming.
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